RERA Compliance

What RERA Requires From Developers

The Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, enacted in 2016 and progressively implemented across Indian states, requires developers to register all residential and commercial projects above a certain size threshold with the state RERA authority. Registration includes disclosing project details, layout plans, timelines, and financial information.

Key compliance requirements include: committed completion dates that are publicly visible on the RERA portal, quarterly progress updates submitted to the authority, financial discipline (70% of buyer payments deposited in a designated escrow account for project costs), structural defect liability for 5 years post-handover, and penalties for delays including interest payment to buyers.

How RERA Changed Construction Management Priorities

Before RERA, project delays were commercially inconvenient but rarely had regulatory consequences. A developer could delay a project by 2 years and manage the situation through buyer communication and revised possession letters.

Post-RERA, delays are documented on a public portal. Buyers can file complaints directly with the RERA authority. Penalties are calculable - typically the State Bank of India's highest marginal cost of lending rate (MCLR) plus a premium, applied from the committed date to the actual handover date. For a Rs 1 crore flat delayed by 12 months, the compensation can exceed Rs 9-10 lakh.

This changed the calculus for developers. Construction management tools are no longer optional efficiency improvements - they're risk mitigation against regulatory penalties.

State-Level RERA Variations

While RERA is a central act, implementation varies by state. Haryana RERA, UP RERA, Maharashtra RERA, Karnataka RERA, and Telangana RERA each have slightly different rules for registration thresholds, quarterly reporting formats, complaint resolution timelines, and penalty calculations.

For developers operating across multiple states - which is common for Tier 1 firms like DLF, Godrej, Prestige, and M3M - this means compliance workflows need to accommodate state-specific requirements. A project in Gurugram follows Haryana RERA rules. A project 30 km away in Noida follows UP RERA rules. Different reporting formats, different portals, different timelines.

RERA Compliance and Project Scheduling

The RERA-schedule connection is direct. The committed completion date in the RERA registration is derived from the project's baseline schedule. Any deviation from that schedule needs to be managed with awareness of RERA implications.

Effective RERA compliance requires: maintaining the baseline schedule with the RERA-committed date clearly marked, tracking progress against that baseline consistently, documenting reasons for delays (force majeure, regulatory approvals, buyer-requested changes), and generating quarterly progress reports that match the format required by the relevant state RERA authority.

Projects that automate this tracking - linking construction progress to RERA milestone reporting - spend less time on compliance paperwork and have stronger documentation in case of buyer complaints or regulatory audits.